We had flown to Romania, to the Carpathian Mountains, the very seat of legend and horror. Every year, a Halloween party was held there, in the restored remains of Dracula's Castle. While no one had lived here for centuries, not since the death of Vlad Tepes, the Impaler, the very Dracula of legend, folklore and ghost stories himself, the castle was frequently used as a tourist attraction. And even had it not been popular with tourists and vampire aficionados throughout the world, the Romanian people were fiercely proud of their ancient hero, the man who had stood, practically alone, against the tide of the Ottoman Turks.
We arrived at the castle and were awed by its majesty. It was a simple castle, not the glorified mansions of the movies, but elegant nonetheless. We followed the tour, gazing at the rooms that Vlad himself had once occupied from the bed chambers that he had undoubtedly taken many a mistress in to the balcony where he had reportedly dined as he watched thousands of his enemies being impaled. It was that legend that had earned him the sobriquet "the Impaler".
We were escorted to the main ballroom which was smaller than expected. It had been explained that in the cold, frigid Carpathian winters, larger rooms were difficult to heat to satisfaction and that only the close press of bodies truly kept it warm. We did not truly care. We were in the home of legend.
The party truly began here. The music began to play, soft at first but it would get more primal as the night wore on. Servers wove their way through the crowd, wielding trays of red wine that seemed to reflect the myths of blood drinking vampires. It was merely a deep red wine that was bottled right here at the castle, each bottle sealed and stamped with the Tepes crest and a gothic "D".
You and I drank sparingly. The crowd was beginning to become uncomfortable for the both of us. We mingled, we even danced some, but this was becoming somewhere we did not wish to be. So we snuck off.